Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem (DS) Guest Review

Do you know how difficult it can be to come up with a tagline for a review? I mean, seriously. One time I had this really good one for Rhythm Heaven Fever. It was "I got a fever, and the only prescription is more Rhythm Heaven." But you know what happened? Those jerkwads at GameTrailers used that exact line in their review for the game. Then I was up a creek without a paddle and had to come up with a new one that would be nowhere near as apt as my old idea. Regardless, my brother had some trouble with coming up with a tagline for Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem. He finally did, and I find it to be incredibly clever. Here's his review!

The Mini Faces of Mayhem

The Mario vs. Donkey Kong
has provided some fun entertainment over the years. The GBA game was in
fact one of the first reviews on SuperPhillip Central! While that
particular game played out more like a sequel to the 1994 Donkey Kong
title on the Game Boy, recent iterations of the series have focused on
the Minis, the little toys that Mario tried to get back from Donkey Kong
in the GBA game. This time around, the simian gets a little steamed
when he’s shafted out of receiving a Mini of his own at the grand
opening of Mario’s newest theme park and decides to make off with
Pauline once again. Since Mario can’t really get his move on in such
tight spaces, he sends the Minis in to do the hero thing for him. If
you’ve played the other DS titles in the series, this may sound like
standard fare at the fair. Does Nintendo change up things for this third
offering, or is this one ride you should skip out on?

If you’ve
ever played the DS titles in the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series, you’ll
know that the action is almost all controlled by the stylus. With it,
you can activate your Minis and try to get them to the exit door in each
and every one of the game’s eight main worlds or Attractions as the
game likes to call them. The main difference between this and March of
the Minis is that once you’ve activated your Minis, you will no longer
be in control of them. How are you supposed to guide those little guys
around when they’re completely out of your direct control? You control
them indirectly, of course!

You see, Mini-Land Mayhem focuses
more on you using the terrain to help your toys reach the goal rather
than just guiding and stopping the Minis around manually. You start off
learning how to use girders as walkways for the toys. These girders are
held in place by two bolts. With one tap of your stylus on a bolt, the
girder will disappear back into your collection, giving you a few extra
construction pieces to place down a girder in a different place. To do
that, all you have to do is draw a line from one bolt to the other to
create a new path for your Minis to walk about on. As you’re going about
guiding the Minis through a level, there are coins, a Mario token, and a
card to pick up. Picking up all of these in a level will give your
Minis a perfect score bonus at the end and hopefully a trophy to boot.
The tokens and trophies unlock special levels once you’ve collected
enough of them while the cards will unlock minigames that I’ll get into
later.

It’s not all just learning how to use girders as the game
will also throw in springs, conveyors, ladders, pipes, and cannons that
you’ll have to use in tandem as you go along. The first levels of each
Attraction generally try to get you familiar with what you’ll be
focusing on for the rest of the levels while subsequent levels will
increase the challenge of how to get your Minis to the goal without
losing one in the process. The thing about this game is that if you lose
one Mini, you’ll have to replay the stage once again. It’s all or
nothing. The same applies if you get one Mini to the exit and fail to
get another there quickly enough. Once one goes through, you have six
seconds to get another Mini to the goal before it locks you out and
you’re staring at the retry screen. Some later levels can be extremely
strict with this limit as Minis will be placed all over and getting them
to the goal will require a good deal of thinking, timing, and maybe a
little luck to go along with it!

There is an exception to that
timed door rule, and that comes in the fourth level of every Attraction.
Here, you won’t just be in control of Mario Minis. You’ll have to free
and bring a Toad, Peach, Donkey Kong, and even Pauline Mini to their own
respective doors, thankfully without a time limit, to complete the
stage. Other themed levels include having to deal with a Circus or
Capture Kong in each seventh level that will try to prevent you from
getting to the door while the eighth and final level of each Attraction
has one Mini carrying a key that will have to get to the exit door first
to unlock the door and help you exit the stage. Once you’ve beaten all
eight levels, you’ll gain access to a boss fight with that dastardly
Donkey Kong.

These fights play out in vertical levels similar to
the old style Donkey Kong fights you’re used to. Just like in the main
stages of the game, you’ll have to guide your minis up to Donkey Kong
and have them climb ladders, walls, or whatever three times to put him
down for the count. As you’re trying to do that, Donkey will drop
barrels or enemies to try and take out your Minis in one fell swoop.
Even worse, when this monkey gets really mad, he can destroy positions
on the map where you can place bolts, limiting where your Minis can
walk. It can get a little frustrating at times after collecting both the
level card and token only to be forced to wait things out as you can’t
create the right path to defeat Donkey Kong.

Once you have taken
down the ape, you’ll both unlock that Attraction’s stage parts to use in
the game’s construction mode and be sent off to the next Attraction,
but you can quickly go back and play the previous Attraction’s minigame
if you’ve collected all of the nine cards along the way. These minigames
are nothing more than trying to drop specific Minis into their own
color-coordinated boxes or ones that have point multipliers depending on
which setup the game gives you. Either way, you’ll have to make sure to
avoid the dark boxes that will take points away from you. Beat the high
score, and you’ll earn yourself three more Mario tokens.

I
mentioned that there were bonus levels in the game, and yes, these ones
are much more difficult than most of what the main game has to offer.
The Mario tokens will unlock the twenty levels that the special world
has to offer. These areas are unique in that you don’t get a chance to
survey your surroundings before starting. Once you tap the screen to go,
all of the Minis in the level will start up on their own. To say things
get a bit hectic here would be an understatement. Moreover, collecting
enough trophies will give you a chance to play the extra levels. These
ten stages are huge in length compared to what you’ll deal with in the
main story, and even to this point, I have yet to complete all of them.

The
content doesn’t stop there, either, as the game has a harder difficulty
setting once you’ve completed it in Plus mode. While the levels are the
same in layout, you’ll be given different Minis other than Mario to
play around with again. The catch is that you now have to get the Minis
to the exit door or doors in a specific order. I found this part of the
game to be much more fun than the main mode as it required some
ingenuity at times to get everyone to the exit in the proper order. If
you’re one that thinks the game is too easy, trust me when I say that
this mode will give you the challenge you were looking for. If you’re on
the other side of the fence and are struggling too much with it, then
that’s all right, too. Borrowing the idea from New Super Mario Bros.
Wii, Mini Guides will become available if a stage is giving you too much
trouble. While I chose not to use them in my run through the game, it’s
nice to see that the option is there for those that can’t figure out
that one stage.

So there you have it. Add up the boss and
minigame levels along with Plus mode, and you’re looking at 222 stages
this game has to offer. The construction mode gives creative minds the
chance to make and upload their own levels online, but I more than had
my fill with the game itself. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem
offers a surprisingly deep amount of content once you get through its
easy initial offerings to create a title that I eventually warmed up to
more and more throughout my time with it. If you're one of the players
out there craving a challenge, you might get a little bit bothered by
having to work your way through nearly half of the whole package to get
there, but the end result is a somewhat thrilling ride that can be
enjoyed by all ages.